Paging Dr. Hardy....Dr. Hardy, line one, please.....Altec questions
Ok, so I've never per se been a horn guy...because I've had limited exposure to them.
So, I awhile ago I was chatting back and forth with Art Dudley's family after he passed and she made the comment that Altec's were pretty much the only speakers that she would actually stop and listen to.
Hmmmm.
And we never really talk about them here.....
There is a pair of Heathkit AS 101's reasonably local to me....and from what I'm gathering, these are basically rebranded Valencia's
Anyway, thought I'd throw this out here....broaden the horizons and all that....
So, I awhile ago I was chatting back and forth with Art Dudley's family after he passed and she made the comment that Altec's were pretty much the only speakers that she would actually stop and listen to.
Hmmmm.
And we never really talk about them here.....
There is a pair of Heathkit AS 101's reasonably local to me....and from what I'm gathering, these are basically rebranded Valencia's
Anyway, thought I'd throw this out here....broaden the horizons and all that....
I plan for the future. - F1Nut
Comments
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Well... I mean, I'm the wrong person to ask, you know?
Chatting with Art Dudley's family?! That is oh-so-cool! He's the one audio journalist I'd really like to have met; I think his audio reproduction tastes and mine were pretty congruent. Well, OK, there are others -- Herb Reichert'd be on the list... and Kal Rubinson, too... and then a bunch of the old guard, now long passed.
OK, where were we? Altec. Heathkit...
so... yeah, if the price is right-ish, why not?
There are a couple of "issues". I think (??) that the XO in Heathkit's loudspeakers is not the stock Altec XO. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is something to consider.
The other thing is this: The Valencia and its "housebroken" VOT kin all represent profound compromises relative to their big, ugly brethren. The Voice of the Theater cabinet is a clever front-and-back loaded bass/low MR design that suits the behavior of the 416 and 515 drivers to a "tee". The Valencia is a much (?!) smaller bass reflex cabinet, and they give up quite a bit in LF performance.
I like Valencias a lot, but they are bass-shy and... I did actually sell mine. I replaced them with the far-less-honored (and far less valuable) Santiagos -- which use a few tricks to offer more (deeper) bass & better (more extended) treble, abeit at the expense of several dB of sensitivity. Hoffman's Iron Law and all that.
I reserve the right to pontificate more on this topic (imagine that?!) but I gotta go work on lunch.
More anon...
Oh, TL/DR summary: BUY 'EM if the price and condition are right -- but DO manage your expectations at the high and low parts of the frequency range.
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Awaiting more commentary, breathlessly....
Art and I had passed a few emails over the years....I emailed him about Quads YEARS ago.....and when he passed, I purchased some of his LP collection. I have traded condolences and pleasantries sporadically with his wife and daughter over the past couple years. Art was my FAVORITE audio writer.....we have different tastes in music but I think have (or had...) similar ideas in what we sought out of audio, if that makes sense. Stereophile is not the same since Art passed...
I plan for the future. - F1Nut -
So, if I were wanting to get into Altec's......what am I looking for? The a-series Valencias seem to generate the most buzz....but I often ascribe that to them being the most available.
The VOTT's are probably cost prohibitive and, frankly, look awful. At that price point, a pair of LaScala's (which I have heard) would elicit some interest, in my mind....I plan for the future. - F1Nut -
The 16 ohm variants (yes, the 846A, in Altec-speak) are considerably more valuable/more expensive. There's nothing wrong with the 8-ohm variants, though.
Here's a photo of one of my erstwhile 846A Valencias -- the one that was sans fretwork grille.
That 416A woofer is a thing of beauty in every respect (including sonically).
Here's an early/mid-'70s Heathkit catalog blurb on the AS-101 (and the Bozak-equipped,and seldom seen AS-102)
As far as the... ahhhhh... utilitatian aesthetic of the real VOTs, there is an alternative.
There was a gen-u-ine domestic VOT, the redoubtable (and oh-so-modestly named) Altec Magnificent. You could look for a pair of those 
They're large. Very large. And heavy. Very heavy. They're the real deal, though, and attractive (if one likes the original Valencia aesthetic, that is).
(a pretty pair of Magnificents -- from somewhere on teh webz)
LaScalas? Well, I really, really don't like the sound of vintage LaScalas. They also lack bass (being way too small as bass horns) and the MR and treble are, in the unforgettable perspective of Tom Brennan, of the Sawzall kind. Some folks do like them -- I am not one of those folks.
The current LaScala presumably has much better MR and treble -- the bass issue's baked in to the design, so that wouldn't much change, without "aftermarket" EQ of some sort. The current ones are a bit pricey, though.
I hope this is helpful -- you're gettin' this through a dense "me" filter!
As an aside -- I had a chance, locally to buy a pair of Magnificents a couple of years back! I
demurred, mostly because there's no practical way to get 'em up to my hifi loft, and no way Mrs. H was gonna tolerate them anywhere else in the house!
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FASCINATING....
And, for the record, your opinion of the LaScala's are pretty much my takeaways (I didn't hear much I liked aside from the dynamics) but making a cost type comparison (again, thinking out loud-ish....sans much coherence)I plan for the future. - F1Nut -
Loud and incoherent...
I resemble that remark
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So, just to give you an idea of why the Valencia misses out a bit on the VOT experience, here're the plans for an Altec Voice of the Theater A7 cabinet. I did overstate the complexity of the bass loading of the A7 in my original post. It's essentially a big vented box with some midrange front-horn loading (as you can see in any photo of a VOT cabinet).
And the Valencia cabinet.
source: http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/altec/plans/1968-plans.htm
The rectangular "holes" on either side of the 811B horn in the 846A photo I posted earlier are the bass reflex "port" B
The ultimate domesticated (barely) version of the VOT was probably the well-known and rather monstrous Altec Nineteen. The Nineteen used a 416 woofer in a big BR cabinet and (I think?!) one of the later versions of the 806 1" compression driver on an 811B horn -- so far, a lot like the Valencia. The differences are: 1) the Nineteen uses a bigger BR box and 2) there's contouring built into the XO to improve the treble performance (extension) of the treble driver/horn. The net result: a loudspeaker that's not quite as sensitive as the Valencia or a real VOT, but that does a "hifi" job with the program material that feeds it. I wouldn't mind having a pair of Nineteens 
but they are big, heavy, and expensive. 
http://www.lansingheritage.org/images/altec/specs/home-systems/model-19/page1.jpg
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See -- you got me started!
This is just the kind of thing that folks come to a Polk Audio forum to read about, right?
I want to come back, for a moment, to the Santiago. The Santiago was a modernized version of the Valencia. Altec developed some woofers with T/S parameters that made them compatible with acoustic suspension alignments. The called them the "Dynamic Force" drivers, and there were at least two: the 411-8A and the 413-8A. I really don't know what the difference(s) between the two is, other than one has a plain cone & the other one is ribbed for greater pleasure.
Sort of like the Nineteen -- the Santiago also uses the 811B horn and 806A driver, with different "compensation" networks to allow the drivers to work better in their small sealed box. The net result is a loudspeaker that retains (to my ear) the best qualities of the Valencia (really superb midrange and very good, smooth treble) but with extended and more emphatic bass and some better extension for the treble too. I do like 'em, and I've kept 'em -- but I also paid a fifth as much for the Santiagos as I did for the Valencias (which, FWIW, were purchased from one of the local Altec gurus at fair market value, and sold to another regional "tubes and horns" guy by me for what I paid for them originally).
The Santiago is a bit less sensitve than the Valencia. That, by all appearances, craters its cachet with the fanbois.
Here's one of my pair of 878A Santiagos with the 413 woofer
Actually, according to the reference below -- the 846A Valencia also has some built in compensation for the two drivers! I did not know that (or I'd forgotten) until I was just checkin' specs. See the following link.
http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/altec/reference/1975-driver.htm
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Our very own Cliff.
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mhardy6647 wrote: »See -- you got me started! This is just the kind of thing that folks come to a Polk Audio forum to read about, right?
No.
Lumin X1 file player, Westminster Labs interconnect cable
Sony XA-5400ES SACD; Pass XP-22 pre; X600.5 amps
Magico S5 MKII Mcast Rose speakers; SPOD spikes
Shunyata Triton v3/Typhon QR on source, Denali 2000 (2) on amps
Shunyata Sigma XLR analog ICs, Sigma speaker cables
Shunyata Sigma HC (2), Sigma Analog, Sigma Digital, Z Anaconda (3) power cables
Mapleshade Samson V.3 four shelf solid maple rack, Micropoint brass footers
Three 20 amp circuits. -
Can you describe, in 900 words or less, why it is that you do come to the Polk Audio forum?
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Can you describe, in 900 words or less, why it is that you do come to the Polk Audio forum?
Nope.
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Yeah... so... the Bolero.
This gets interesting.
I think that most of the Boleros one will run across are the 890C, which uses a nice woofer & PR, and (to the best of my knowlege) a pretty generic horn tweeter.
The 890B used the (in)famous Altec 3000 horn tweeter, which was very excellent except for its extremely limited power handling capability.
The 3000 tweeter used a microphone diaphragm as the radiator in the compression driver. They're fragile and, in this day and age, essentially irreparable. There was (literally) one guy who could do it, but he died or retired, and the art and tools, AFAIK, are lost to the community.
All this being said, some of the Altec gurus say the Boleros are all good, Altec-y sounding loudspeakers.
I have next to zero experience, so I'd have to say that I really don't know how they fit in at all -- but they may fit in just fine!
Right now I am jonesin' to do something like this -- which should be incredible and still fairly compact. Not inexpensive to pull off, though.
https://jelabs.blogspot.com/2019/04/altec-753a.html
The superb Altec 414-16 12" woofer
The superb Altec (WE) 32A horn
The superb Altec 802D compression driver
In a gorgeous rendition of a classic WE enclosure.
hubba-hubba!
FWIW: JE lives in Pennsylvania, not all that far from B-more. I am just sayin'.
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Oh -- I assume it's obvious that the "phase inverter" in Altec-speak is what all y'all (all us all) would call a Passive Radiator.
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PUHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA! Dyin'!!!
🎶 Mark's Hilllllls are alive with the sound of... ♫ Well. I'm not sure. Still the Reserves?
I disabled signatures. -
I do have a big head... but not quite that big.
I -- ahem -- also usually stay inside when I feel like dressin' up like that.
Usually.
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mhardy6647 wrote: »I -- ahem -- also usually stay inside when I feel like dressin' up like that.
Usually.
I knew the blue was too modest for you....
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No more Altec banter?
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I guess your public admittance to crossdressing kinda killed the conversation.
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Dang!
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If I had a nanny I'd want her to be Mary Poppins. The Julie Andrews one, not the Doc Hardy one.
But Doc Hardy could be my cool uncle.I disabled signatures. -
If I had a nanny I'd want her to be Mary Poppins. The Julie Andrews one, not the Doc Hardy one.
But Doc Hardy could be my cool weird uncle, the one that no one talks about very much.
Fixed that for you.
de nada.
https://youtu.be/z6gfhTg5OFs